


It Begins With A School Project

by goddess_of_flowers_and_death



Series: Little Hunter AU [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Gen, High School, for now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 09:00:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13096779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goddess_of_flowers_and_death/pseuds/goddess_of_flowers_and_death
Summary: Dean, Cas, and Bela are assigned a school project together, and it doesn't go as well as it could have.





	It Begins With A School Project

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU I've been working on for a long time with some of my friends. More notes at the end, but for now: Cas is fourteen, Bela is fourteen, and Dean is fifteen.

Dean tapped his foot impatiently, leaning up against a support pillar at the edge of the high school courtyard. "C'mon, Sam," he muttered into his phone, glaring absently at the concrete as he waited for a reply.

 _Finally,_ his little brother picked up. "Dean? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing," Dean sighed, fiddling with his backpack strap. It was slowly wearing down, despite his several attempts to duct tape the slowly widening tear back together. "I've just . . . I've got this stupid group project I was just assigned to. I'm meeting up with them in the school library, just for a few hours. But I'm gonna need you to pick up Adam."

"Yeah, of course." Dean grimaced at Sam's quick reply. He hated leaving his little brothers to look after themselves like this. Especially with Dad not getting home from the garage until 6:00pm.

"Don't bring Adam all the way home, alright?" the teen added, scuffing the worn toes of his boots on the sidewalk. "Just . . . I'll meet you guys at the library when I'm done, okay?" That would keep them on bigger streets and only ten minutes from the school, rather than the half hour of shady backroads it took to get to the apartment.

"I can handle getting him home, Dean." Sam's little exasperated sigh came out thick and muffled through the phone speakers.

"Just go to the library, Sam." Dean's frustration with having to leave them alone at all gave his voice an unwanted edge, but it got the message through. "Wait for me there and make sure Adam does his homework." His little brother gave another sigh, but didn't protest. Dean lowered his voice. "You got your knife?"

"Of course." Sam sounded serious. Good.

"Okay." With a little self-conscious glance around the mostly empty courtyard, Dean finally smiled into the phone receiver. "Be safe, Sammy."

"It's Sa-" Dean hung up the phone before his little brother could finish the protest. Like he would ever stop being Sammy, his baby brother.

Hitching up his backpack with another sigh, Dean pocketed his phone, fingers brushing the outline of the switchblade tucked into his inner coat pocket, and turned back towards the tall brick building. Time to get this over with.

~~~

"Michael!" The eldest Shurley looked up from his textbook at the call, quickly scanning the crowd and catching sight of Castiel headed towards him. He set his pencil down and waited for his little brother to reach the table he was studying at.

"Michael, I cannot come home after school today." Michael narrowed his eyes and tipped his head to the side an inch before the young angel continued. "I have been assigned a group project." Michael sighed deeply. He hated his siblings being a part of group projects. It kept them away from home, away from him. Had them working directly with humans, which was just an insult to their existence.

Finally, he replied. "I assume you're meeting with them at the school?" The boy nodded in reply, eyes wide and earnest, waiting for instructions. "Do your project, do it well, but do it quickly. And take Anna with you. I will pick you up when you are finished."

Castiel nodded, and Michael dismissed him with a small wave of his hand.

"Wait." Castiel stopped and turned back on his heel, looking curious and vaguely nervous at his brother's call. "Who are you doing this project with?" There were enemies in this school. Michael wanted to be as careful as possible, especially with two of his younger siblings at stake here.

"Bela Talbot and . . . Dean Winchester." _That_ got Michael's attention. He could feel his eyes widen against his will.

He took a steadying breath.

"Report back to me what happens." Castiel nodded again and took the silence that followed as a dismissal. Michael tapped his pencil absently on his half-finished homework. This was no coincidence. Dean Winchester's destiny was tied up in that of their family. He was meant to be working with Castiel today.

~~~

"No, I have to stay." Bela scowled into her cellphone as her mother sputtered reasons she shouldn't hang around the high school after hours, like she was going to secretly join a cult or something the moment school got out. "It's for school, Mom. It's a graded assignment. I'll be home late, okay?"

She hung up the moment her mother gave her a reluctant go-ahead. She still had a few minutes before her last period of the day. Dropping her leather backpack next to her and placing herself firmly on an open bench in the common area, she gave the busy hallways a quick glance to make sure no one was watching too closely and slipped a small leather-bound book out of her bookbag. The inside cover was covered in warding and sigils. She could get a few minutes of reading done before she had to head off to her Biology class.

~~~

Bela looked up sharply to the thump of a heavy backpack being dropped carelessly on the table by her papers. Dean Winchester flopped into the chair next to hers looking grouchy. Good. It wasn't like she wanted to be here either. The dark-haired kid sitting across from her, Castiel, looked up to from his own notebook.

"You're late," Castiel stated, staring over the library table at the older teen.

Dean glared back incredulously. "Dude, I'm, like, five minutes late. I had to call my brother. Lay off."

"Can we just get this done?" Bela interjected before they could get started with each other. Castiel turned his blank frown at her but kept his mouth shut. Dean, of course, was incapable of keeping his mouth shut.

"It's not like I want to be here any more than you do, sweetheart," he muttered into his backpack as he dug around and pulled out a crumpled notebook and a stubby pencil.

"I'm not your bloody 'sweetheart'," Bela snarled back, ignoring the odd blank way Castiel was glancing between them.

"Really? 'Cause not too long ago, you nearly had me convinced that-"

"Nearly nothing. And that doesn't mean you can-"

"What do you mean 'nearly nothing'? I _caught_ you, didn't I? On your shitty little stealth mission?"

"Dean. Bela." The two paused simultaneously, both half risen from their chairs, and glanced over at the third member of the group. He was sitting calmly, looking half confused and half mildly frustrated. Bela sat down again, hiding her chagrined scowl. Even tucked in the little back corner of the library as they were, they were drawing attention from the three or four students scattered around the tables throughout the room. Even the quiet red-head that had entered with Castiel and taken up her own table not too far from theirs was staring, though she was visibly trying not to.

The dark-haired boy turned his penetrating gaze towards Dean, and it only took the teen a few seconds to fold and sit down as well, still looking ready to pick a fight, but quiet nonetheless. Castiel nodded. "Can we do our project now?"

Bela picked up her notebook and skimmed the notes she had taken on the assignment. "I say we each take a section and get this done as quickly as possible." _So we can each work alone._ Dean murmured a disgruntled agreement.

"That is fine," Castiel concurred, eyes flitting over his own assignment notes. They managed to each pick a section without sparking any further conflicts, and soon enough they were settled silently writing around the table, ignoring each other. Bela was keeping her eyes pointedly on her notes and her textbook only. Dean let out an undoubtedly purposefully annoying sigh every few minutes, but he stayed silent. Castiel would glance up every once in a while, but he seemed content to do his work quietly as well.

They were doing perfectly fine until Bela stood to get a reference book from a different section of the library. It was a stupid mistake to leave her backpack, but being around Dean again had rattled her a little, as much as she hated to admit it, even to herself. His existence was a walking reminder of not only her utter failure, but of a serious low that she hated to have to remember at all.

She was walking back with the thick biography in hand, her mind focused on just how much longer this project would take, when she turned the corner to reach their table and froze. Castiel was standing by her _open_ backpack holding the lore book. But even more than that, he was frowning at it, his fingers tucked around the edges of the cover like he was . . . Like he was trying to open it. Like he _couldn't_ open it.

Bela was on him in a flash, the biography dropped carelessly on the table and one hand fisted into his tan trench coat. The paring knife she had swiped from the kitchen last week felt clumsy in her hand, despite the smallness of the blade, but it was the best she could do. It slid smoothly from its place rolled up in a silk napkin in her pocket and was against his throat in seconds. The boy looked startled, eyes wide as he dropped the book and lurched backwards under the force of her grip, but he remained still and . . . shockingly calm.

Dean, on the other hand . . . "Jesus Christ, Bela! What the f-?"

"What are you?" the girl demanded, trying to keep her hand steady. That book was warded against nonhumans. If this boy couldn't open it . . .

"Alright, calm down!" Dean growled, glancing nervously around the nearly empty and nearly silent high school library. His hand latched into one of her wrists, and she choked on her breath. Before she could think, her knife hand swung at him, catching his palm as he pulled back reflexively. He muffled a gasp and let out a string of muttered cusswords, ending in a hissed "Bela, put the damn knife down."

 _"What are you?"_ Bela demanded once more, ignoring Dean's second incomprehensible string of swears. The dark-haired creatures eyes darted right and Bela followed to the red-haired girl—his sister? His accomplice? A fellow monster? She was standing by her table, stance tense and defensive and eyes sharp and dangerous. Bela felt the boy shake his head ever so slightly at the girl when she moved to take a step forward.

"Bela, look, I can explain, but I _need_ you to put the knife down." Her eyes shot back to Dean, who was standing tensely with both hands raised in an attempted calming stance, one palm smeared with fresh blood that trickled down his forearm.

"You _knew_?" Bela fought to keep her voice low enough not to draw the notice of the other students. A full bookcase shielded their little altercation, but getting too much attention could be disastrous. Bela tightened her grip around the smooth wooden handle of the paring knife, her gaze wavering between the calm glare of the creature in front of her and the young man attempting to soothe her into lowering her weapon.

Dean grimaced and glanced at the other boy in their group. Bela was just turning back to him when she felt two gentle fingertips touch her forehead and in an instant the world went black.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, whew. I wrote this first part probably about half a year ago, and I've written a lot in this AU before and after that. I just decided that this one worked pretty well as an introduction to the whole universe. There should probably only be one more chapter of this particular story and then . . . on to the rest of the series. This AU is . . . big and complex and includes a lot of both bending and shuffling of canon and a few headcanons, so I'm just going to let you guys pick up bits and pieces as I post stories. I have a lot worked out and a lot not quite figured out yet, so . . . there will be a lot of ironing out of details as I write. I write mainly in one-shots, so that'll be how this goes as well, in no particular order. 
> 
> Dean is fifteen, Sam is eleven, and Adam is six years old. Castiel is fourteen, and Michael is eighteen. Cas and Dean are in the same grade, freshman in high school, because Dean started school a little late, as per canon, if I remember John Winchester's journal correctly. Bela is also fourteen. 
> 
> Yeah, I'm finally getting into everything I've got for this AU . . . No turning back now. 
> 
> -Persephone
> 
> (I don't own Supernatural. Sorry, folks.)


End file.
